School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at St Edmund Campion Catholic School?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 34 families who named St Edmund Campion Catholic School as their first choice did not get a place: the school offered 215 and 214 put it first.

Below: what an appeal in Birmingham actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 12 years of official figures.

1

first choices for every place available

214 first preferences for 215 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at St Edmund Campion Catholic School

There is no published appeal success rate for St Edmund Campion Catholic School, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Birmingham as a whole and cover every state-funded school in the authority. Anyone quoting you odds for a named school is making them up.

Across Birmingham, 10.8% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 245 of 2,271 appeals heard in 2024–2026. The England figure is 20.1%.

A panel is not deciding whether you want the school. It decides whether the admission arrangements were lawful and correctly applied, and then whether the harm to your child of not being admitted outweighs the harm to the school of going over its published number. Cases built on preference rather than on those two questions are the ones that fail.

See the full appeal figures for Birmingham.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Birmingham ones. Whichever school you are appealing for, the panel works through the same two stages and is required to ignore the same things.

How contested this school has been

St Edmund Campion Catholic School turned first-choice families away in every one of the 12 years published. More families named it first than it had places in 4 of those years. In the other 8 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at St Edmund Campion Catholic School, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 0.87 per place 161 first choices 186 places 2016/17 0.91 per place 168 first choices 185 places 2017/18 0.77 per place 143 first choices 185 places 2018/19 0.79 per place 146 first choices 185 places 2019/20 0.87 per place 158 first choices 182 places 2020/21 0.89 per place 179 first choices 201 places 2021/22 0.95 per place 190 first choices 201 places 2022/23 1.19 per place 239 first choices 201 places 2023/24 1.17 per place 236 first choices 201 places 2024/25 1.12 per place 241 first choices 215 places 2025/26 1.14 per place 242 first choices 212 places 2026/27 1 per place 214 first choices 215 places
First preferences per place at St Edmund Campion Catholic School. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 214 first preferences for 215 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at St Edmund Campion Catholic School, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 186 161 141 0.87
2016/17 185 168 140 0.91
2017/18 185 143 126 0.77
2018/19 185 146 124 0.79
2019/20 182 158 130 0.87
2020/21 201 179 144 0.89
2021/22 201 190 147 0.95
2022/23 201 239 167 1.19
2023/24 201 236 165 1.17
2024/25 215 241 182 1.12
2025/26 212 242 180 1.14
2026/27 215 214 180 1

Places offered

215

in 2026/27

Named first choice

214

770 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

84.1%

180 of 214

Offers to families outside the council

1%

2 of 215 offers

This school was issued a new Department for Education reference when it converted to an academy. Its earlier years are included above, reported at the time under reference 103537.

Was the school full?

This is the question a panel spends most of its time on. At the second stage of an appeal it weighs the harm to the school of taking an extra child against the harm to your child of being refused — and how much room the school has is the heart of that. The admission authority has to show harm over and above the fact that its published number has been reached, so it is fair to ask what the specific harm is — how the second stage actually works.

Places, Years 7 to 11

1,154

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

997

86.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

157

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

120

excluded from the figures above

Read this before you use these numbers

These are whole-school figures across Years 7 to 11, not the year group you are appealing for. A school can hold spare places in its upper years while the year you want is genuinely full, and the panel will have the year-group numbers in front of it. So this does not show that St Edmund Campion Catholic School has room for your child.

They are also the school's own reported capacity, as at 1 May 2025 — a year behind the application figures further up this page, and a description rather than a finding.

On the published figures St Edmund Campion Catholic School reported 157 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 86.4% of capacity. That is worth asking about — but ask it as a question, not an assertion. A panel will want the figure for the year group in question, and the school may have a good answer about staffing, rooms or timetabling.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at St Edmund Campion Catholic School from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,043 places 988 on roll 2010/11 1,043 places 983 on roll 2011/12 1,043 places 1,030 on roll 2012/13 1,043 places 1,028 on roll 2013/14 1,043 places 1,054 on roll 2014/15 1,043 places 1,015 on roll 2015/16 1,043 places 1,004 on roll 2016/17 1,043 places 1,000 on roll 2017/18 1,043 places 1,011 on roll 2018/19 1,043 places 1,002 on roll 2020/21 1,043 places 1,050 on roll 2021/22 1,080 places 1,099 on roll 2022/23 1,110 places 1,125 on roll 2023/24 1,110 places 1,136 on roll 2024/25 1,274 places 1,135 on roll
Whole-school figures including any sixth form, as at 1 May each year. 2019/20 is missing because the 2020 School Capacity survey was cancelled.

Department for Education, School capacity, school-level file, 2024/25. Published under the Open Government Licence.

What these figures do not tell you

About the school

Type
Academy converter
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Birmingham

Postcode B23 5XA. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 147707).

Other contested secondary schools in Birmingham

Applications and offers: Department for Education, Primary and secondary school applications and offers, school-level file, 2026/27. Appeal figures: Admission appeals in England. Both under the Open Government Licence.